Conventional devices are known which provide settable standard values (upper limit value and lower limit value) for evaluation (ranking) of measurement values (for example, refer to U.S. Pat. No. 5,851,487).
The device disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,851,487 is allows changing of the standard values. Therefore, a user of this analyzer can change the standard values in accordance with the purpose for which the analyzer is used. For example, it is possible to have separate standard values for analyzing specimens from hospitalized patients, and standard values for analyzing specimens from persons undergoing routine health examinations, and, therefore, it is possible to accurately rank the measurement values.
However, the standard values used in ranking measurement values include standard values that may be optionally changed by the user of the analyzer, and standard values that cannot be optionally changed.
For example, since analyzers often do not operate normally when measurement values fall into a ranking representing a lowest value and a ranking representing a highest value, the standard values for these rankings may not be optionally changed by a user.
Since this point has not been considered in the case of conventional analyzers, however, it is difficult to accurately set standard values.